Humanities Professor - 23 Aug - Idle Pulping

[d phipps]

Aye, therein lies the joy of unarmed miniatures. They could be deceptively deadly beneath their harmless appearance or, y'know, they could actually be harmless. Great potential plot points for Pulp Alley too, though my wife would roll her eyes at the idea of another damsel in distress!

Couldn't have said it better! Right on the money.

[FramFramson]

Couldn't agree more. I've lost track of the number of figures I've actually disarmed for just that reason.

[Idle Doodler]

And from the unarmed to the very-armed - the rest of the army unit.

Not a lot of effort has gone into painting these minis well. I cannot abide uniforms, especially in groups of more than four. I far preferred converting some of them to hold more modern weapons. Otherwise they've been basecoated and then washed down with Quickshade.

They're holding the fort until I can produce some more memorable villains, which I don't see happening for a while. Hopefully these will get me gaming a bit before then.

The Corporal:



The Lieutenant:



The Privates:



The New Recruits:

[Idle Doodler]

Back to the action academics now. Running out of relatively (read: barely) plausible social science disciplines, here's a miniature I picked up from Bad Squiddo Games - my Archaeologist. She's to be the Elaine Darrow for my (hopefully) up and coming Perilous Island campaign.

An APEX investigator from Fenris Games, I believe, this miniature was great fun to paint - enough detail to keep the painter in me interested, but not enough to bore the gamer.

[dinohunterpoa]

Back to the action academics now. Running out of relatively (read: barely) plausible social science disciplines, here's a miniature I picked up from Bad Squiddo Games - my Archaeologist. She's to be the Elaine Darrow for my (hopefully) up and coming Perilous Island campaign.

An APEX investigator from Fenris Games, I believe, this miniature was great fun to paint - enough detail to keep the painter in me interested, but not enough to bore the gamer.

PERFECT choice of miniature and great brushwork as usual! 

[d phipps]

Very cool! Great looking miniature. 

[Idle Doodler]

This is kinda pulp-ish, I think?


Well, the first Pulp Alley game with the Mrs went well, pitting the wiles of Cedric Wyrtgeorn and chums against a band of academic adventurers, and to all intents and purposes she (and I) enjoyed the occasion.

The Artemis Fowl / Indiana Jones-esque theme didn't really grab her, though, and I've been giving some thought as to what I could add to my small but growing collection of miniatures which might spark her imagination into full gear.

Of course, my mind wandered, so inspiration came from the lady herself: she quite likes Harry Potter - do I have anything along those lines?

I did not, and try as I might, I could not find much throughout the web on 28mm Hogwarting, other than an upcoming game from Knight Models, and they look to like they're going to be bigger and more expensive miniatures, and far too detailed for my liking. I also am not inclined to just use film characters (aside from the fact that I did not enjoy the films, so very much preferring the books) - I prefer to game within a world, rather than follow a set script with a pre-written cast, so clearly I will have to produce my own miniatures.

I like converting figures so there is no issue on that score; I have a fair few models which will suit as civilian wizards and witches (muggle-clothed to start with) since pretty much any lightly armed or unarmed appearance will do. The main difficulty arises in sourcing wand-holding hands; I just couldn't find anything more suitable than spears cut short, and those didn't feel right.

So I am having to make my own.

My experience with Green Stuff until now has been largely filling gaps and wild hair styles, with the odd reworking of a sleeve here and there - nothing so intricate as hands and fingers, so this is a learning curve.

So, attempt #1:



I figured the best way to reduce the risk of the wand breaking off at some point in the future was to extend the paper clip I was using for her arm and model the hand around the bend.

The fingers weren't actually all that hard - I just had to remind myself to be patient and let the first parts dry before attempting the next.

As you can see, I rather oversized her wand hand, so I've enlarged her left fist so as to hopefully minimise the discrepancy. Hopefully the difference (and indeed the size of the hands relative to the rest of her) will be a bite less noticeable under a paint job.

Attempt #2:



The hand is at least approaching the right scale, though looking at it now I feel the forefinger is a tad too long. The wand is also a bit longer than the other, but seeing as "each wand is unique", I reckon I am allowed to get away with not being too fussy on that front.

Now to get some paint on them, and work on some male wand wavers. These two women came from Offensive Miniatures and only needed to have their hands snipped off and replaced - unfortunately the male rioters all generally have their faces covered or hold their arms in unsuitable positions. I'll have to look elsewhere, and probably have to reconstruct entire arms. Here goes nothing...

Larger pictures are available on my blog.

[von Lucky]

Not even factoring you say they're your first attempt, the conversions are pretty good.

[von Lucky]

Edit: the link at the end of your post is to a picture, not the blog post.

[Idle Doodler]

Thanks! I suspect the effect, particularly at the wrists of attempt #1, will be akin to Pixar's Andy fixing Woody's ripped shoulder - namely a bit too bulky for the job. It seems long sleeves might be the way to go.

Over - wrong link fixed. Ta!

[Matt]

Agree with von Lucky, pretty darn good if this is your first go.  I have used green stuff a few times, but never to put on a new hand.  I'll be interested to follow your progress and results.

What was the original source of you muggle wizards?

Matt

[Idle Doodler]

Cheers! They both came from World Rioters Set C at Offensive Miniatures.

[Idle Doodler]

I've never been particularly good at sticking with a painting project long enough to see it through to anything approaching a completed state, and that inability reaches out to include many other aspects of miniature hobbying.

Terrain especially has suffered from my short attention span - it would feel odd making terrain for a miniature range I hadn't painted, so I just wouldn't make any. Then, once I had painted some models up, I would feel dispirited at the lack of terrain to allow for a game (alas, book-hills and sponge-trees just didn't do it for me).

Having spent most of my hobby career dabbling in fantasy worlds, I had nothing in the way of modern scenery, and after the first, wilderness-based scenario for Pulp Alley's Perilous Island campaign the action moves to more urban settings.

I felt the similar irritation at my lack of terrain rising, so I've tried to clamp down on my inner snob and look to less aesthetically pleasing but practical (and cheap & easy) techniques for making modern buildings. Given the choice, I'd much rather have beautifully crafted houses, complete with individual brickwork and varnished interior woodwork, but needs must. It would seem I haven't the patience to wait until I've developed the skills needed to construct (miniature) buildings, so to keep the hobby momentum going I've turned to papercraft models to flesh out the tabletop.
 




Germy has a good little collection of shoe box-like units - ideal for a beginner like myself to get an idea on how to go about putting paper buildings together - with the added benefit of having interior decor. I've found scenery to be much more fun in a tabletop game if you can interact with it in some way.

The inner snob emerged briefly to complain about all the white bits still showing, but I've shut him away again - this is about brick bums on seats.



I'm a scavenger by nature (my wife would say hoarder) and over the last year or so I have brought back some surplus flyers from work for a few events, and at last A6 bits of 350gsm card have come in handy! Some of the walls, roofs and floors aren't structurally sound as they could be, being split over two or more bits of card, but they do well enough for now.

I still found these to be a bit of a faff, cutting and measuring card not being my top choice of activity, so I wondered about resizing the box building templates so that for most of the sides I could just stick in an unmodified card.

I started with a couple of Stoelzel walls, doors and windows. I don't have any specialist programmes for this sort of thing (my computer baulks at the idea of anything much more complicated than paint, otherwise I'd be using GIMP), so over a lunch break or two I put together my templates on Powerpoint. Rather than use the A6 flyers, I started small with some defunct business cards (put aside for safe keeping, because you never know when inaccurate contact details might come in handy).







They won't win any design awards, and I think even the British property market would think twice before producing homes to these specifications, but they're a breeze to put together. A business card each for the walls, and one and a third business card each for the roof and floor. Definitely going for impression on these rather than realism!

[Redmao]

Nice buildings.
I'm also a fan of card stock buildings. Rather easy to build and you can fill a whole table without busting the bank.

[Idle Doodler]

Boy, yes. I like the look of some of the MDF buildings available, but just can't commit Ł100+ on half a street of houses.

That said, I've a number of TTCombat models on my Christmas list...